Living In The Shadows
by remains
Summary: Harrison is 17 and is starting to wonder where Dexter goes at night. M for the Dexter themes.


**I can't categorize this the way I want to, because it's from Harrison's POV, not Dexter's. Anyway, this is the beginning of Harrison figuring out who his dad really is. Reviews welcome! **

"What do you think he's doing?" Katie asked me. I turned to her in the bed and continued to stroke her curves. I let my hand slip up her tank top.

"Who?" I asked absentmindedly.

"Your dad," she said as if I should've known we were continuing an imaginary conversation from early.

"Uh, blood stuff?" I said stupidly, tickling her back.

"This late at night? It's two a.m.," she said fidgeting under my hand. I pulled it away and rested my head on my other hand, my elbow supporting the load.

"Does it really bother your that we have time alone to fuck around and he's not here? I can invite him next time if you want," I said teasing her.

"All we're doing it fucking around?" she sounded offended.

"Katie, I just meant that we have time alone and you're thinking about where my _dad_ is. It's weird," I said my eyebrows furrowed. Why she was thinking about him was beyond me. Maybe she was paranoid he would come back and catch us. He never checked my room, I knew that. He either assumed I was here or trusted me enough to not care what I was up to on a Saturday night at two a.m.

"My dad would freak out if you were over this late," she commented. So this was about him catching us. I had a feeling he wouldn't care even if he did see us. And it wasn't like we had done more than feel each other up while making out. Katie was far too religious to let things go much further. I didn't mind so much though, she was hardly fun when we did make-out. Being her third boyfriend after a list of rather unattractive, unkind boys didn't make her want to jump into the sack with me. With this in mind I had no anxiety about performance, since I never would with her. At the same time, she would still sneak out to come to my house when my dad left, even if we didn't do anything more than talk. About him. In all honesty, she was kind of a annoying and the only reason I didn't dump her was because it was hard enough getting anyone else.

"But he's not here and my dad's not home, so why does it matter?" I tried again to figure out the inner workings of her brain. My attempts were futile.

"What is he doing?" she asked again.

"I don't know," I said slumping down into my pillow.

"Would it be weird if I asked him?" she said sitting up in bed.

"Yes Katie. It would be really weird. Considering he's not supposed to know you're over here," I said trying very hard not to sound exasperated.

"You should follow him sometime," she said taking her gaze away from my window blinds to me.

"To work? I bet you ten bucks that's where he goes," I said again.

"I don't think so. It's way too late. He must be seeing someone. Oh! What if he's seeing someone?" I couldn't tell if Katie was angry with this idea or just shocked at her own wittiness.

"Why wouldn't he bring her here?" I humored her.

"Because you're here. He probably doesn't want to upset you because… you're mom…" she said nestling back down into the covers. She looked sorry for what she said.

"I don't care if my dad has a girlfriend. Rita died when I was just a baby. I don't remember her," I said flipping over onto my back. I really could hardly remember my mom which I'm told is a shame because my half siblings, Cody and Astor loved her so much. It seemed My dad did too. All I know is that she's the reason I'm blonde.

"Rita? You don't say mom?" Katie asked hesitantly.

"The most I've had of a mom is my old baby sitter and I don't think she counts. I have my dad and that's really all there is," I said defiantly. I hated when people felt pity for me because of what the Trinity Killer had done to Rita. I had been found in her blood, crying. My dad had told me a few years ago and people at school had found out through their parents. I could hardly remember it.

"I'm not saying your dad isn't enough, but what if you had had a mom? Or what if your dad really is having an affair?" Katie pressed on, wide-eyed at the idea.

"I turned out fine, thank you. And he wouldn't be having an affair; he's not cheating on anyone. Katie, will you just drop it? He works late. He's a lab geek," I tried to conclude the ridiculous idea.

"Harris, would you really be okay if your dad was seeing someone?" Katie asked seriously, like I was insane to not be heartbroken about this hypothetical new-mom.

"Yeah," I didn't want to talk anymore.

"But-"

"Katie! I think you just need to go home," I said sitting up in bed and pulling off the covers.

"I'm sorry-"

"Just go home. I'll see you tomorrow," I said, annoyance edging in my voice. Katie looked a little hurt but mostly angry. She got out of bed, fixed her hair and slipped on her flip flops. I walked her through the apartment to the front door and she grabbed her light jacket for the late Miami night breeze. She looked at me as I held open the door for her, concerned. Finally she stepped through the threshold and I closed the door.

Walking back to my bedroom I had too much to think about now. I was sure my dad was going to work late at night, my aunt Deborah, also Lieutenant at the Miami-Metro Police Department, often relied on her brother to help her solve particularly hard cases from what I understood. He had some sort of hunch that often led to solving it.

Or he could be seeing someone. He didn't seem like he wanted to see anyone though. But I had seen him come home looking particularly happy, content and at ease. A certain smile on his face that looked just slightly different than the one he had on during birthdays and celebrations. Besides his expression he always took a shower afterwards, which isn't exactly proof of anything other than that he felt he was dirty. Was that from a woman? Was he seeing someone? Did that actually bother me?

The thought of my dad seeing anyone had never crossed my mind. He didn't seem to be anything but polite and friendly to the women in his life, but never flirtatious. Charming, yes, but not seductive. Maybe he was hiding this from me though. He might have had the same thought as Katie, that it might break my fragile little heart that he had moved on from his once beloved and now very much dead wife, Rita. I doubted this; I sincerely felt that he had to be going back to work, moments of inspiration coming to him during sleep. It had never bothered me; it gave me time to spend with Katie. She didn't like taking advantage of this apparently though and I wasn't sure if I would invite her back over next time he disappeared.

I got undressed and slipped into bed with just my boxers. Looking into the blackness of the room, it pixilated in front of me like TV fuzz. The ceiling was a dark blue without the lights on. My smoke detector's little green light drew my attention. I began staring at it and thinking more and more about Rita and My dad. And Cody and Astor. What had their lives been like before me? The pictures looked happy. I knew that Cody and Astor had to deal with even more fucked up shit than me, a drug addled abusive father. That was something they had to live through. I was born in my mother's blood, nothing I could really recall.

I didn't visit them much anymore; it felt so awkward to have these older half siblings who lived with my grandparents, with Rita's grandparents. Rita, Cody and Astor felt very foreign to me. I had heard about the little time they had spent with me and that they liked me as a baby, but in my preschool years and much into grade school, their visits were less and less frequent. We had nothing in common; they were much older than me. They loved seeing My dad though.

Sometimes I got jealous. They would play out this scene of family that I didn't understand. What I knew were baby sitters, My dad and Aunt Deborah. I felt closer to Aunt Deborah than I did to Cody and Astor really. Debs liked to talk to me; she had a real fondness for me. When it came to Astor, she treated me like a little kid, even when I got older. Cody hardly talked at all. He seemed cold and a little angry. I had no idea how to approach him. Honestly I really only felt comfortable with my biological side of the family. And now I had this idea there might be someone even further removed that could be coming into my family.

I would know though. My dad would've told me. He didn't seem all that interested in making a relationship with anybody though. He cared a lot about me and how I was doing and he cared about making sure Aunt Deborah was doing okay too. He had friends from work, like Angel Batista and Vince Masuka, but he mostly kept to himself. Thinking about him being alone kind of made me wish he did have someone.

I wished I had someone too. Katie was a girl to pass the time with, and it wasn't very exciting. On the contrary she bored me quite a bit, but it was something I could handle. I didn't like being put into situations where I didn't have an easy routine. Katie said and did the same things a lot of the time and she didn't want to go further than mostly kissing. Any other girl, a more experienced girl, would have me feeling sick with anxiety. I liked other girls at school but I didn't talk to them, I became too nervous. My dad never told me anything about how to talk to girls. It seemed he didn't really know either, considering he was single sixteen years after his first and only marriage ended.

There was this girl in my biology class… sometimes I really wished I could just talk to her. She was a sophomore, probably three inches shorter than me and had blonde and red hair. Her name was Sadie and she spoke out in class. I barely raised my hand, but Sadie answered questions all the time. I can tell she gets frustrated when kids don't shut up or they say stupid things to the teacher. I admired her and it helped that she was attractive. But I couldn't talk to her. I was older but I didn't feel any wiser than her. The idea of looking stupid in front of her was almost too much to think about.

These thoughts didn't help me fall asleep. It was three thirty before I got out of bed for some water. I wandered into the kitchen and the front door opened slowly. I figure it's my dad and I waited for him to come into the room. Sure enough, a profile that very much fits his description slid in through the frame and stopped short when he sensed somebody else in the room.

"It's just me," I announced, assuming "me" was a good enough description.

"Oh, Harrison," my dad said closing the door behind him and flipping on a light. "What are you doing up?"

"Just couldn't sleep," I said, which I knew was a painfully obvious answer. I noticed him put down a black duffle bag next to his desk.

"Have you been up all night?" he asked, moving around the room. He seemed slightly on edge.

"Mostly," I said getting myself the water I set out for. I swallowed some and watched him step near the air conditioner vent.

"You should get back to bed," he said nodding. He moved away from the vent and came over to me. I looked up about an inch to see into his eyes and I smelled something different about him. I didn't know if it was just me, but I'd always known the way he smelled and the way that my Aunt Deborah smelled. It was just a distinct, human scent. But right then it seemed mixed with someone else's smell. Almost coppery, which I thought was an odd smell to have. Instinctively, I reached my arms out around his torso and gave him a hug goodnight. His thermal shirt was sweaty. From the Miami heat? It was more than possible. I tried to push what Katie said out of my mind.

"Goodnight," I said and pulled away. I headed towards my room and forgot my water on the counter.

"Harrison," I heard him say.

"Huh?" I asked turning around.

"Get some sleep," he offered a smile. It wasn't the kind he usually came home with. It was the kind everybody else saw. I felt something sink down in me and it didn't feel good.

Back in my room I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. I turned over and hugged my pillow. Why did that feel so weird? Even though I had been right next to him I felt as if I had been miles away. There was an eerie disconnect I couldn't place, something wasn't right.

I heard the shower turn on; almost as if he knew he had to follow this routine. Why did this bother me so much? Not even why, but _what_ was bothering me? I couldn't place my finger on any one thing really. The way he smelled? The hour he was out of the house? I should've just asked him what he was doing. Not like I had any authority over what he did in the middle of the night, but I felt I had some sort of right to know, considering I was his son.

I knew a big part of what was going on inside me though. I wasn't a little kid anymore. My dad had been so close to me when I was younger, I remember a lot of times we did things together and he read me stories. Even through middle school we were very close. He helped me with my homework and we would go on boat rides. I had loved those rides so much. Things had changed when I started developing my own personality though. When I really started to wonder who I was and what kind of relationships I wanted, he backed away. It was like he didn't know what to do with me anymore. We didn't talk all that much. Maybe he was afraid of me turning into an adult? That was ridiculous. It wasn't as if he had never dealt with adults before. Besides, I knew I was still only seventeen; I'm sure not very mature in his eyes.

I still felt like I had lost him though. He wasn't the same around me, we didn't talk. And I didn't need a heart to heart every night over dinner or anything. I didn't know what I wanted. That relationship was not the same and it was bothering me. Really thinking about it, it was almost as if he was the teenager. Sneaking out late at night, not telling me where he was going and keeping our conversations shallow and infrequent.

Sleep came over me and took my frustrated mood with it.


End file.
